By Richard van Poortvliet
May 16 – A year is a long time in football, especially for Anzhi Makhachkala. This time last year, they were on their way to finishing third in the Russian Premier League and could dream of European football and bringing in yet more reinforcements to try and win the title the following year.
By Mark Baber
May 15 – A new app, which has undergone field-testing at Burnley, Leyton Orient and Sheffield Wednesday, allows football fans to use their smartphones to order and pay for refreshments from the comfort of their seats, cutting down considerably on queuing times.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
May 15 – Panathinaikos is planning to overhaul and expand its stadium, according to Giannis Alafouzos, the Greek football club’s chief executive. Construction works at the facility are scheduled to begin in December 2014, and are expected to take between three and four months.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 14 – After days of silence, UEFA finally came clean today and admitted that they are not yet ready to announce any financial fair play sanctions. In what will be widely interpreted as a partial fudge, UEFA general secretary Gianni Infantino made it clear that negotiations with nine clubs deemed in breach of the strict regulations were still ongoing.
May 13 – Italian authorities have taken swift action against Atalanta by fining the club €40,000 after a banana was thrown on to the pitch during Sunday’s 2-1 home win against AC Milan though many will question whether the fine is enough.
May 13 – The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has rejected Josip’s Simunic’s appeal against a 10-match ban imposed by FIFA for discriminatory behaviour.
May 12 – The boss of England’s Premier League has been forced to apologise over alleged sexist comments but has nevertheless been condemned by women’s groups and politicians.
By Andrew Warshaw
May 12 – Despite increasingly tough penalties in their own competitions from both FIFA and UEFA, at domestic level instances of racism in Europe appear to show no sign of decreasing as, for the third week in a row, a major league has been blighted by discrimination.
By Richard van Poortvliet
May 12 – Zenit St. Petersburg are in yet more trouble with the Russian Football Union after one of their supporters punched Dynamo Moscow defender Vladimir Granat in the head, towards the end of their Russian Premier League tie.
By Jaroslaw Adamowski
May 12 – Municipal authorities in Katowice have bought shares worth PLN 1.1 million (€280,000) in their local football club GKS. The deal follows two other acquisitions of shares made earlier this year making a total of PLN 2 million (€510,000) invested to date.
May 9- Europe’s leading professional leagues have come out in opposition to switching the Qatar World Cup in 2022 from summer to winter, seemingly putting themselves on a collision course with Fifa which most observers believe is edging nearer and nearer to formally adopting a change of timing.
By Mark Baber
May 9- Sparked by the recent massacre in Odessa, the Ukrainian Football Federation (FFU) has ruled that the next round of league games, as well as the cup final, will be held behind closed doors, whilst no matches will be held in the troubled Donetsk, Luhansk, Odessa and Kharkiv regions.
May 9 –Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund has forged strong links to the ex-patriate Polish community in its local area. So much so that the club has a significant Polish player contingent and even a major Polish sponsor. In an exclusive interview with leading Polish sports businesss website www.temporada.pl, Dortmund’s head of business development Benedikt Scholz (pictured) explains the club’s strategy approach to maximising its Polish connections.
By Mark Baber
May 9 – Spain’s Secretary of State for Sport Miguel Cardenal (pictured) revealed Thursday that professional clubs in the county’s First and Second Division have accumulated debts of €3.573 billion, according to data from the Sports Council.
May 8 – Louis van Gaal, Holland’s coach at the World Cup, has given the broadest hint yet that he will succeed David Moyes as the next full-time boss of Manchester United.